Farce follows horror again as Dutroux faces court

Arlon: Belgium's authorities put on a display of force when the trial of Marc Dutroux, the alleged child rapist and killer, finally opened, but the police suffered suffered fresh embarrassment when the van taking Dutroux from court drove off with a back door open.

Police insisted there was no chance of Dutroux escaping at the end of the first day of his trial on Monday as he was being transported back to prison.

A spokesman for Belgium's federal police said Dutroux was caged in a separate compartment in the back of the van, which had remained locked.

In April 1998, Dutroux escaped after overpowering a policeman during a court appearance. He was caught hours later near the French border.

Helicopters had circled Arlon's Palais de Justice during the day as Dutroux pleaded not guilty. However, the manoeuvres were dismissed by several of the victims, who stayed away from what they branded an empty "show trial".

Conspicuously absent were the parents of Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, the two eight-year-old girls who starved to death in chains after more than a year of torture and abuse in a filthy cage beneath Dutroux's house.

Carine and Gino Russo dismissed the trial as a "smokescreen". They claimed it served powerful interests to focus attention on Dutroux while the puppet-masters behind Belgium's child prostitution ring were ignored.

Dutroux, 47, is accused of torturing and killing four young girls, and two further abductions.

The parents of An Marchal, 17, and Eefje Lambrechts, 19, whom Dutroux admits abducting, did attend the trial. They hoped it would at least clear up some of the mysteries of the case.

Earlier in the day, Dutroux claimed in a letter to a television station that he was just a cog in an organised crime ring. He pointed the finger at his co-accused, Michel Nihoul, a con man and pimp who admits having organised orgies for the rich.